The Hong Kong Tourism Board has announced that arrivals in Hong Kong for the month of July 2010 reached the highest ever single-month level, with with 3.13 million visitors: representing a robust increase of 31.9% year on year.

HKTB attributed the month's robust growth in tourist arrivals to the fact that summer is a popular travel season among mainland visitors. The city received more than two million mainland visitors in July: an increase of more than 40%.

However, the the number of arrivals in the same month of last year was impacted by the H1NI influenza. As a result, the arrivals base for comparison is relatively low.

Long-haul arrivals from markets in Europe and the Europe rose by 10.6% while the short-haul market grew by 22.3%.

South and Southeast Asia arrivals grew by 40%, while those from Taiwan climbed 10.4 %.

As for emerging markets, arrivals from Russia, the Middle East and India rose by 86%, 47.5%, and 44.9% respectively.

Figures released by HKTB also showed that the tourist arrivals rose 24.4% year on year to 19.99 million in the first seven months of this year.